Re: Cassini and "60 Minutes"

[Rick_Strickert@radian.com (Rick Strickert)]

Bill Kolb wrote:

> how much risk the government is allowed to take with citizens.

Because the citizens are the government, the question should be properly
stated "How much risk should the elected and appointed representatives
of the government be allowed to take with citizens?"

A valid question in considering the Cassini launch!

But some associated problems are:

1. Some anti-nukes consider the RTG morally wrong no matter how low the
risk; so they won't deal with it on such a basis except to quote the
misleading "weakest link" risk as often as they can get away with it.

2. Other people are so innumerate they would rather "just say no" than
have to deal with a serious discussion of comparative risk assessment.

3. Still others oppose any space-related research on the grounds that
they don't see any short term usefulness (or profit) to them or have
other priorities, so the risk debate is just an excuse that matches
their opposition.

4. Some people oppose space-related research on religious grounds; they
see the space program as associated with "godless evolutionists".  Some
fundamentalist groups actually hold to Tychonic models of the universe,
and see even less reason to support planetary research.

5. Some are so distrustful of anything said by the federal and state
representatives, they think that the whole thing is some secret
conspiracy anyway.

And there are other groups with non-risk-based objections.

So while Bill asked a valid question, getting a meaningful public answer
to it, for the Cassini launch, would be very complex.


Rick


Richard G. Strickert, Ph.D.          |   "Science is the belief in the 
Radian International, Austin, TX     |      ignorance of experts."
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